


Blood of Olympus Rewrite: Chapters 19-20

by HiddenEli



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:14:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenEli/pseuds/HiddenEli
Summary: just a rewrite of the scence in blood of olympus where annabeth and piper face mimas in the temple of fear in sparta. i've always loved this part and wished it would've gone more in-depth on the struggles piper and annabeth were facing at that point in time. i was glad to see where rick ended up taking piper's character in toa but i wished it had been set up more in hoo so i decided to throw this together. enjoy!(note: im bad at ao3 so idk how to tag annabeth/piper as one-sided but that's what's going on here!)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase/Piper McLean, Jason Grace/Piper McLean
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Blood of Olympus Rewrite: Chapters 19-20

Piper’s morning started with exploding toilets.  
“There’s no way you two are going down there alone,” Percy exclaimed after Piper recounted her dream. In it, she had seen herself and Annabeth cowering before a giant, racing through the darkness, and finally being surrounded in a firestorm so intense Piper could almost feel its heat through the dream. Not exactly the tidings of good things to come.  
“It has to be me and Annabeth. I know a giant is down there, but I have a feeling that this can only be done by the two of us,” Piper said.  
“Seriously man?” Leo shouted, running past them. Percy glared at him and Leo stuck his hands up defensively. “Yeesh, sorry, go destroy the sinks too if you’d like!”  
Piper knew Percy probably didn’t mean to cause as much damage as he did, but that didn’t stop her from being intimidated. Piper couldn’t help but feel grateful when Annabeth came over and placed a hand on Percy’s arm.  
“Don’t worry, Seaweed Brain. We’ll be okay,” Annabeth said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Percy’s shoulders relaxed a bit and his expression changed from angry to a bit ashamed.  
“Yeah, okay I...yeah. Just be careful.”  
“We’ll be back before you know it,” Annabeth replied. Piper gratefully followed her outside before Percy could flood any more of the ship.

“You’d think it’d be easier to spot a 30-foot giant,” Piper said, squinting in the sunlight. They’d been wandering Sparta for over an hour but all they’d managed to find was a street performer in plastic armor that kept trying to convince them to take a picture with them. Piper had taken the diplomatic approach and scared him off with her knife. It had made Annabeth laugh, but Piper could tell that she was preoccupied.  
“It seems like you’ve gotten on your mind,” Piper offered as they reached the outskirts of town.  
“That obvious, huh?”  
“Did you want to talk about it?”  
“It’s just...you saw how Percy reacted today. Ever since Tartarus...well, I just feel like everyone on the ship is a bit scared of him, and maybe they have reason to be. I mean, you know what happened down there…”  
“With Akhlys?” Piper asked. Annabeth had confided to Piper all the worst parts of Tartarus in an attempt to process everything that happened. One of the worst things Annabeth had seen was Percy torturing the goddess of misery.  
“Yeah,” Annabeth sighed, “I’m just always afraid he’ll go too far again, and this time it’ll get him into trouble. It’s one thing to push the limits in Tartarus, but if he does it here…”  
“I understand why you’re scared,” Piper said consolingly, “but deep down, that’s not the kind of person he is. I know what he did today was a lot, but I could tell he felt bad about it once the shock wore off a bit. He’s a good guy at heart, he just needs some time. Both of you are still adjusting, just maybe in different ways.”  
Annabeth was silent for a minute, and Piper was afraid she’d said too much. Suddenly, Annabeth stopped walking and hugged Piper tightly.  
“Thanks Pipes,” Annabeth said, her voice slightly muffled by Piper’s shoulder. “I...really needed to hear that.” They stayed frozen in their hug for a moment and Piper felt something she couldn’t quite pinpoint in her chest. Before she could process, a towering column of flames burst from the ruins behind them and they jumped apart.  
“What the hell was that?” Annabeth exclaimed. Piper sighed.  
“I’m gonna guess we just found our giant”

There were three pits in a row in the ground. Each was round, two feet in diameter, and pitch black. If they hadn’t been randomly shooting towers of flame every few seconds, they could've been mistaken for wells - or pits straight to Tartarus.  
“Why did they suddenly activate?” Annabeth questioned. “What could we have done that would have turned them on?”  
Annabeth began circling the pits, counting under her breath when the geysers shot up and shaking her head. “They’re inconsistent. I can’t tell what’s determining this pattern.”  
“Maybe it’s something that doesn’t follow a logical pattern?” Piper suggested, but Annabeth didn’t appear to hear her. Piper started circling the pits herself, but she wasn’t looking for a pattern. Every time the flames erupted, Piper felt a thrill of fear through her chest like she had earlier - panic and dread, but tinged with a terrifying feeling of joy and passion.  
“It’s emotional,” Piper said. “That’s why there’s no pattern to it.”  
“How exactly can a pit of fire be emotional?”  
Rather than reply, Piper stuck her hand out towards the center pit. Immediately, she felt that same jolt in her chest and withdrew her hand as flames burst forth in front of her.  
“These pits are the entrance.” Piper said, shaking the hand she almost burned.  
“And how do you expect us to get into emotional fire pits safely?”  
“Like this.” Piper replied, taking a step forward.  
“Piper McLean don’t you fucking dare-” Annabeth started, but it was too late. Piper jumped into the pit, the stone walls around her burning her arms as she plummeted into the dark. The heat suddenly abated as the space around her opened up and she instinctively rolled to avoid breaking her legs on the floor.  
Flames roared in front of her, illuminating three dragon fireheads as the source of the fire. Piper unsheathed her sword and quickly beheaded the three heads.  
“It’s safe!” Piper shouted up. She surveyed the chamber, now lit only by the glow of her sword and the thin shafts of light from the holes 30 feet above. “And, uh, come quick. I’d hate to kill a giant without you.”  
“On it!” Annabeth shouted back. “But I think I’ll use a rope. I’m not in the mood to break my legs today.”  
A few minutes later, a rope dropped down and Annabeth climbed down.  
“How the hell are your legs not broken?” Annabeth exclaimed.  
“No idea! I’m not complaining though.”  
They both held up their swords and surveyed the scene as best they could. Looming in front of them was the statue of a kneeling bronze warrior, his face turned down and cast in shadow in the dim light. Anchoring him to the floor were massive bronze chains wrapping all around his body. On either side were two massive doorways, stubbornly cloaked in darkness despite the faint light in the chamber around them. Above each doorway, faces were carved into the stone. Each face was gruesomely contorted and ringed with a lion’s mane. As Piper approached the statue, she felt a metallic beat echoing through her entire body - a heartbeat.  
“I’d be willing to bet that’s the chained god’s heartbeat.” Piper said. “But who-”  
“Phobos and Deimos.” Annabeth replied, pointing to the doorways. “Panic and fear.”  
As soon as Annabeth said the names of the divine twins, a wave of fear swept over them both, so intense that Piper’s knees nearly buckled beneath her. Piper swallowed the urge to climb up the rope and escape to the warm sun far above them. Instead, she reached out and clung tight to Annabeth’s trembling hand. Her presence grounded Piper and she began to control her thoughts again.  
“This isn’t just a shrine to Ares. It’s ramping up our emotions, stirring up our feelings.”  
“I don’t care what it is!” Annabeth stammered, tightening her grip on Piper’s hand. “We need to get out of here!”  
“It’s a temple dedicated to fear. That’s why we’re feeling so overwhelmed,” Piper explained. “That’s why you started to feel so terrible earlier. It’s like being around my mom, but instead this place amplifies our fears.”  
“Clever, child of Aphrodite” a deep voice boomed through the chamber. The giant suddenly melted in existence from the shadows blanketing the walls. His head nearly reached the ceiling more than twenty feet above them, his charcoal hair brushing the roof. His skin matched his hair and he swung a massive sledgehammer in his hands. In his hair glinted twisted copper wires.  
“But I’m afraid that clever plans won’t help you here.”

Whatever fear Piper had felt earlier was nothing compared to this. She was suddenly bombarded with all of her worst memories all beating around in her brain at the same time. She saw herself plummeting into the Grand Canyon; her dad tied up on Mount Diablo; her dad huddled and empty-looking in the helicopter; Percy and Jason fighting to the death; drowning in the nymphaeum; standing alone against Khione and the Boreads and, strangely enough, a moment from last spring when she and Annabeth had been laughing hysterically at the bonfire. The unexpectedness of this last fear jolted her from the trance she was falling into, just in time for her to see the giant swing his sledgehammer at them. At the last second she dove out of the way, dragging Annabeth down the ground with her. She heard the giant chuckle above them.  
“Tricky! Usually it takes only one swing to eliminate weaklings such as yourselves.” he proclaimed, hefting his hammer for another hit. “I am Mimas, born to slay Hephaestus! No plan of yours will ever be able to defeat me.”  
“Annabeth, we need to run!” Piper tried to drag Annabeth to her feet, but she was moving sluggishly, her eyes unfocused and fearful. Her hand was limp in Piper’s grasp. Piper’s fears had nearly paralyzed her, but Annabeth had been to Tartarus and had been dealing with monsters since she was a child. She was relieving years of trauma and pain all at once.  
“Annabeth, I’m here,” Piper said, putting all her power behind her voice. “We can get out of this together, you just need to trust me.”  
“Piper…?”  
“I’m here.” Piper saw some of the fog clear from Annabeth’s eyes and felt her grip tighten slightly. Before Annabeth could react, Piper hauled her to her feet and dragged the two of them at a full sprint through one of the doorways.  
“I wouldn’t go that way if I were you!” Mimas taunted from behind them as the darkness of the tunnel wrapped around them. The sound of his voice seemed to jar Annabeth slightly.  
“W-what’s the plan here?”  
“No plan!”  
“What?”  
“Just trust me!” As soon as Piper said this they burst back into the chamber, surprising Mimas. Piper slashed the back of his leg before pulling Annabeth back into the suffocating darkness of the tunnels. They ran blindly in the dark, Piper leading them in the directions that piqued her fears.  
“You’ll be lost to the darkness!” the giant called in the distance.  
“Piper, we need to close our eyes! It’s like the House of Night!” Annabeth said, her voice cracking in panic.  
“No!” Piper called back. “We can’t hide from our fears here!”  
Piper felt the air shift in front of her. Piper dove to the side, bringing Annabeth to cover alongside her as the hammer passed over their heads and slammed into the ground. As Mimas attempted to wrench it from the ground, Piper drove her sword into his leg, sending him stumbling back.  
“You think you can defeat me?” Mimas roared. “It took both Hephaestus and Ares to defeat me in the last war! Now you’re facing me without even one god. I would have defeated Hephaestus himself if that weakling Damasen had just done his job and taken care of Ares! You cannot win!”  
“Don’t you dare insult Damasen!” Annabeth screamed, throwing herself at Mimas and slashing his knee before he could react. As he reached to crush her, Piper vaulted off his knee and swung wildly at his face, slicing off his ear. Piper rolled out of the way as Mimas fell back in pain. She grabbed Annabeth once more and pulled her back into the tunnels, glimpsing the tear tracks tracing Annabeth’s face in the dim light before they were swallowed by the darkness again. Piper led them deeper into the dark, always heading where her fear was the sharpest as Annabeth stumbled along behind her. They ran like this for several minutes while Mimas’s shouts echoed around them until Annabeth suddenly stopped, yanking Piper to a stop.  
“Piper, we have to stop!” Annabeth begged. “We can’t just- we can’t keep running through the dark like this! We need a plan-”  
“We can’t. If we try to plan our way around this, he’ll defeat us. We have to follow our emotions, not reason.”  
“That doesn’t make sense!”  
“I know, but-” Piper started, but was cut short as Mimas appeared beside them.  
“Submit!” he shouted as he swung. Piper and Annabeth dove out of the way and his blow hit a wall, sending cracks racing up its send and dust pouring from the ceiling.  
“He’s going to bring the whole place down!” Annabeth cried. “We need to get out of here!”  
“We can’t think about escape!” Piper called back, running towards their rope on instinct and leaping up to cut it.  
“Are you fucking crazy?” Annabeth shouted as the rope dropped to the ground.  
“Probably!”  
“Fools!” Mimas roared, sending more dust and rubble down from the ceiling. Before he could attack, Piper and Annabeth disappeared back into the darkness. As they ran they could hear Mimas smashing more walls and they felt the sting of stone shrapnel spray across their backs.  
“Piper-” Annabeth said weakly. “How can you keep running like this? He’s going to bring this whole place down and we don’t even have a way out and-”  
Piper stopped running and cupped Annabeth’s face, and pulled them together until their foreheads were together. She felt Annabeth’s racing pulse under her fingertips.  
“I know you’re scared. Gods, I am too. But that’s why this place exists. Our fears aren’t things we can hide from or plan our way out of. Our emotions never follow reason. If we try to control what we feel, we’ll just get overwhelmed and lost. If we let ourselves feel our fear and learn from it, then maybe we stand a chance at having it lead us somewhere better.”  
“But what...how does that help down here?”  
“We have to speak our fears out loud. We can’t just confront the fears inspired by this place- we have to bring all of our fears out into the open.”  
“But how do you know?”  
“I just feel it,” Piper said. “Do you trust me?”  
As she waited for Piper to answer, the two of them still holding each other in a close embrace, Piper felt a sense of understanding scratch at the back of her mind. She started to realize the meaning of all the fears Mimas had shown her.  
“I...I trust you,” Annabeth replied. “What do we do now?”  
Rather than reply, Piper pulled back and grabbed Annabeth’s hand. They took off running once more, their footsteps almost inaudible over the sound of the chamber starting to crumble around them.  
“I’ll go first!” Piper offered.  
“Yeah, that’d be nice!”  
“Okay, uh....even though I don’t really like her most of the time, I’m scared to disappoint Aphrodite.”  
“Uh...so, even though I recovered the Athena Parthenos, I’m still scared that Athena sees me as a failure and a disappointment to her.”  
As Annabeth spoke, Mimas appeared in their path facing away from them. Together, they slashed at his legs, disappearing from his grasp before he could react.  
“Alright um...I’m scared that, since my dad can’t know I’m a half-blood, he’ll never love the real me, just the version of me that I have to present to him.  
“Even though we’ve lasted a few years without any big problems, I’m scared that my parents are going to turn on me again and abandon me.”  
“I’m scared that my dad is going to fall apart again and this time I won’t be able to fix him.”  
“I’m scared that any family I find will betray me just like Luke did.”  
“I’m scared that my dad is going to keep running from the world until he breaks.”  
“I’m scared that I could have done more to save Luke.”  
Again, they found Mimas in their path and each aimed an attack at him before withdrawing again to the darkness. As Piper continued, she found it easier and easier to speak her darkest fears aloud.  
“I’m scared that Jason is close to breaking and I don’t know how to help him.”  
“I’m scared of the dark side of Percy I saw in Tartarus.”  
“I’m scared that I’m the reason Jason is going to end up breaking.”  
“I’m scared that Percy is going to go down the same path as Luke.”  
“I’m scared that I don’t love Jason enough.”  
“I’m scared that I won’t be able to save Percy from himself.”  
“I’m scared that I’m not in love with Jason at all.”  
“I’m scared that I’ll lose Percy the same way I lost Luke.”  
“I-” Piper’s breath caught in her throat, but she knew instinctively that she had to admit this last fear out loud. “I’m scared that I might be a lesbian.”  
“Ha!” Mimas roared as Piper and Annabeth found themselves suddenly in front of him. “Sharing secrets in the dark like little girls at a sleepover? You think revealing your pathetic mortal fears will somehow defeat me?”  
“No,” Piper replied, pointing to the carved faces. “But I have a feeling those two appreciated it.”  
Mimas turned to where she pointed and Piper cut deep into the back of his knee, sending him crashing to the ground along with pieces of the crumbling walls. She turned to Annabeth as the giant struggled to rise.  
“Annabeth, you have to keep him occupied! I need to release the makhai.”  
“I...I don’t know if I can,” Annabeth said, her voice trembling.  
“Then just...just think about getting revenge for Damasen. Use your love for him to help you focus.”  
Annabeth’s gaze darkened slightly and she pulled out her knife. With a guttural cry, she leapt at Mimas while Piper turned towards the statue and doorways.  
“I understand now why the Spartans came here. To be ready for battle, they had to be ready to face their fears. They had to accept fear and understand the terrible things that are unleashed in war. But Phobos and Deimos were born of war and love. Fear is rooted in the things you care about- the things you love. War can’t be fought unless you have something you’re fighting for.”  
Piper paused, glancing over at Annabeth as she battled against Mimas. “My brothers …. I’ve offered you my fears. Now I offer you my love,” Piper said. She took her cornucopia from her belt and placed it in front of Ares. This, Piper knew, was the sacrifice she had to make. The horn wasn’t just attuned to her emotions. It represented her adventures with Jason and the strengths she has begun to see in herself during this quest. It held the love that she had for Jason that she was finally beginning to understand and the love for the person she’d become that she’d denied for so long.  
“I’m scared to give this up,” Piper admitted. “But I accept that it’s what needs to happen.”  
Piper raised her jagged sword and swung it at the statue’s head. As the bronze echoed throughout the chamber, flames erupted from the severed neck, swirling around them in a torrent of panic and hatred and passion and love. The heat burned on Piper’s skin, reaching deep into her chest and making her feel raw and vulnerable. Piper held out her arms and welcomed the makhai to her.  
‘We will answer your call,’ the makhai whispered in Piper’s mind. ‘Only once, when you need us, destruction, waste, carnage shall answer. We shall complete your cure.’  
The flames then disappeared, taking the cornucopia with them. Piper was scared to look down at her arms and was surprised to find that she and Annabeth were unharmed. Mimas wasn’t as lucky. He layed huddled on the ground, his already charcoal skin now burned black as midnight, golden ichor pooling underneath him. He groaned, trying to drag himself towards Piper.  
“You-” he choked out, but he had forgotten about Annabeth. She brought her bone blade down into his back, pinning him to the ground. His roar echoed around the chamber, cracking more of the walls and sending the carved face of Phobos crashing down on top of him. His yell was cut out as he disintegrated into ash.  
“Gross.” Annabeth said as she reached into the pile to retrieve her sword. The room rumbled around them and Annabeth scanned it nervously.  
“This place isn’t going to last much longer. I know we weren’t supposed to think about escaping but…” Annabeth jumped as a piece of wall crashed behind her, tripping on the giant’s severed ear. “I, uh, think this is your spoil of war.”  
“Great, I’ve always wanted to hang an ear above my bed.”  
“Why waste it on decoration when you can use it as a shield?”  
“I think I’ve got a better idea,” Piper replied, gingerly picking up the ear and laying it in front of the doorway of Deimos. “Thank you, brothers, for helping me defeat the giant. I offer you this, uh, lovely ear as a sacrifice and ask that you give us a way to escape.”  
They waited a moment, but nothing appeared to happen. Piper grabbed Annabeth’s hand. “Let’s go through the doorway. I’m hoping it’ll lead us back to the surface.”  
“And what if it doesn’t?”  
Rather than reply, Piper looked over her shoulder and gave Annabeth a grin. Annabeth rolled her eyes and gave a begrudging smile and the two plunged into the darkness.

They ran through the dark for a few harrowing seconds until they suddenly found themselves back in the sunlit ruins. They looked at each other and burst out into laughter that quickly dissolved into exhaustion. Piper heard Annabeth choke back a sob and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. They began walking out of the ruins but only managed to make it as far as a nearby hillside before they collapsed into the grass.  
“Well, that was...something,” Piper said with a sigh.  
“Yeah, no kidding.”  
“Did you...want to talk about what happened down there?”  
Annabeth hugged her knees to her chest and stared down at the ruins below them. “It’s just...even when we were kids, Percy and I had our reservations about helping the gods. We fought against the Titans more to protect our fellow demigods than out of any care for the gods and Percy...wasn’t always good at keeping that fact a secret. I mean, he turned Ares into his enemy within a few weeks of realizing he was a demigod. But we fought on the side of the gods, so I held on to some hope that after he turned sixteen we’d be spared and get to walk away from everything alive. We’d be able to make- make our own family.” Piper saw a tear go down Annabeth’s cheek.  
“Even though I know now that Luke’s fated was sealed, I still sometimes feel like I could’ve done more to save him. Like I could have convinced him that destroying the gods wasn’t the only way to fix things. I remember how angry he would get sometimes, and part of me agreed with his anger. So I never...never tried to convince him to let go of his anger for the sake of staying alive. And now...I feel like Percy is heading in the same direction. We’re the same age now that Luke was when he decided he was done with the gods and I understand more than ever why he felt that way. When I saw the way Percy would act sometimes in Tartarus- the manipulation, the anger, the sheer power he had- all of it reminded me of Luke when he was at his worst. And look at us now! Percy went through one horrible prophecy, and his reward was to have the gods steal eight months of his life and throw him into another quest. He’s angry. I’m angry. And now that Percy has gone through Tartarus and realized just how powerful he can be and just how hopeless everything can feel in the end...what if he decides to turn on the gods too? What if I fail him the same way I failed Luke and he ends up dead?” Annabeth said, burying her face in her hands. Piper wrapped her arms around Annabeth’s shoulders and sobs wracked her body. They stayed like this in silence for a minute. When Annabeth eventually started to breathe more normally, PIper decided to speak up.  
“Annabeth I- I understand why you’re scared. But there’s one difference between Percy and Luke that makes all the difference. Luke let his anger lead him on a path to destroy everything, including demigods. But Percy? No matter how angry he may get, he is never going to do anything that could hurt another demigod, especially you. Yeah, sometimes you might have to help reign him in and remind him how easily the gods can turn on him. But he loves you like crazy. He’s not going to put even just himself in harm’s way if he knows how much it would hurt you to lose him. Percy is your family and he wouldn’t throw that away for the world.”  
For a moment, Annabeth didn’t reply and Piper was scared she’d said too much. Then Annabeth turned to Piper and hugged her tightly, burying her face in Piper’s shoulder. They clung to each other, Annabeth’s ragged breaths causing her chest to rise and fall against Piper’s. They held each other for another minute before Annabeth eventually sighed, and moved her hands to Piper’s shoulders, moving them apart until she held Piper out at arm’s length.  
“Thank you, Pipes,” she said with a small smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  
“Perks of being friends with a daughter of Aphrodite,” Piper said. Annabeth chuckled and suddenly gasped.  
“What am I doing, talking about all my issues when- I mean, Piper, you…”  
“Haha, yeah…” Piper said, turning away from Annabeth and laying on the ground to stare at the clouds above.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
“Hey, that’s supposed to be my line!”  
“Well this time I’m going to take a turn at being the supportive friend!”  
“Okay, okay,” Piper said, smiling in spite of herself. She placed her arms behind her head and continued to stare determinedly at the sky.  
“You probably think I’m a terrible person for staying with Jason when I’m pretty sure I’m gay.”  
“I don’t think you’re terrible! That isn’t exactly an easy situation to figure out, Piper.”  
“Yeah, well, I feel pretty awful about it. It’s just- it took me so long to be sure, you know? I mean, when I first met Jason, my head was full of a bunch of fake memories of us being in love. Even when I realized those were just fabrications made by our darling friend Hera, that didn’t make those feelings disappear even if they weren’t real. When we went on our first quest together, I really liked Jason. We got along great, and I guess I thought those had to be romantic feelings since the idea that I had to be with Jason had already been planted in my head. When we started dating, things were great. The more I got to know Jason, the more I loved him. In the spring, though, I started to realize that none of my growing feelings for Jason felt all that romantic. I loved him, but all of the feelings that were developing were platonic. I started to get afraid that the only romantic feelings I had for Jason were the ones that had been planted in my head. But Jason seemed like the perfect guy for me. If I couldn’t fall in love with him...maybe there was a reason for that. I wasn’t ready to confront that possibility. I started to cling to him more, as though I could somehow force myself to fall in love with him. I’d worked so hard to finally find a place where I felt at home and I was terrified to lose that by being a gay fucking daughter of Aphrodite.”  
Piper paused, sneaking a glance at Annabeth, who was staring at her intently. Piper blushed slightly and resumed her staredown with the clouds.  
“It was a few days before we set sail that I finally started to accept that I wasn’t attracted to Jason. He was my best friend and I loved him as much as I could, but I wasn’t in love with him. But I couldn’t just break up with him right before we’d be stuck on a ship together on a two month journey to our possible deaths! How shitty would that be? So I told myself that it would be better to stay together for now so that we could keep supporting one another. But now look where we are. In a few days, all of us might die, and I can’t decide if it’d be better for the world to end with him believing a lie or knowing the truth.” Piper let out a choked sob and felt a tear roll down her cheek in spite of herself. She rolled over to her side in frustration and was surprised to find that Annabeth had laid down beside her, their faces now only a foot from one another.  
“Pipes...I can’t pretend to have an answer for what you should do. You said it yourself earlier, our emotions aren’t things we can reason our way out of. But- you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You’ve had to deal with both humans and gods expecting you to be a certain way and you’ve still managed to figure out who you are. You’re the only one who can choose what you do now, but...no matter what, you love Jason. If you make sure he knows how much he means to you, I think things will work out okay in the end.”  
Piper smiled. As they lay side by side, Piper felt the knot of fear in her chest start to loosen just a bit. Piper reached out and held Annabeth’s hand. They rested like that for a while, both of them processing everything they had just confessed. Piper started to understand what she had to do next.  
“Sooo…” Annabeth started with a smirk.  
“Uh oh.”  
“Does this mean there’s a special someone at camp that you’re into?”  
“Who says there’s anyone!” Piper denied, but felt herself blush inadvertently. Annabeth gave her a knowing smile but didn’t press her for an answer.  
“Okay, fine, you don’t have to tell me! But I have to ask- when we first got to New Rome…”  
“Was I acting extra clingy to Jason because Reyna was really hot and I was gay panicking just a little bit? Maybe.”  
Annabeth laughed, and Piper felt her spirits start to lift just a bit. Annabeth hopped to her feet and offered her hand to Piper. Piper took it and got up to stand next to her friend. She looked back down at the ruins and decided there was one last thing she had to do before they left.  
“Can you wait here for me a minute? There’s something I want to do real quick.”  
“Of course.”  
Though Piper had been painfully honest down in the cavern, there was still one fear she’d kept to herself. This was the fear that she hadn’t truly understood until today, the love that’d she been most afraid to let herself feel. She walked to the edge of the pits, staring into the dark abyss.  
“I’m scared that I’m in love with Annabeth Chase.”  
Though Piper had already snuffed out the dragons’ flames, she could almost feel the scorch of their fire on her face confirming her fear as truth.

**Author's Note:**

> just a reminder that piper's sexuality is never specified in the books so everyone is welcome to interpret her character differently than i did!


End file.
